


St. Nicholas' Day

by SparksSeer



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Baking, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Time, Gen, Kids AU, german tradtions, kid!johnsons, parents fighting, taking care of younger brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:18:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparksSeer/pseuds/SparksSeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When their parents are fighting, Mike is the one who has to take care of his three younger brothers. He has to calm them down and distract them, so that they would forget about it as soon as possible. Since it's almost Christmas, Mike has a special idea how to deal with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	St. Nicholas' Day

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas everyone!

Mum and Dad had been fighting all morning. They were loud. They shouted at each other. At one point, Mike heard something shatter on the ground, he guessed it was one of the cheap vases in the living room. Later, during the fight, Anders had come to his room with a crying Axl on his hand. Shortly after Ty came to his room as well. It hadn’t been the first time that their parents screamed and shouted at each other, but this time was by far the worst fight the brothers had ever witnessed. It was horrible for Mike to look at his brothers’ faces, they looked so lost and sad. They didn’t want their Mummy and Daddy to be mean to each other, they needed a well-functioning family.

So Mike put away the essay he had to write for school, turned on some music and sat on his bed with his brother. After he had calmed down the youngest brother, he got out a set of UNO cards. He needed to distract them from what was happening downstairs. They were all so _young_. They shouldn’t see any of this. Their parents shouldn’t fight with each other. They shouldn’t throw things and trying to each other. But Mike couldn’t do anything about that. He had tried to stop his parents from fighting several times, but they would only shout at him and make him leave. He was the oldest brother. He was an adult now. If his parents weren’t able to take care of their children, Mike would, because they deserved it. So he played UNO with them.

Shortly before noon, the front door slammed shot and a few seconds and some angry and loud footsteps on the staircase later the door to their parents’ bedroom closed as well. I was over, for now. Ty and Mike hadn’t noticed the end of the fight, as they were debating who of them was on the second and on the third place at their last round and Axl had fallen asleep on his lap. Mike had been thinking about something for the last couple of minutes, something they had been talking about in his English Literature class at school.

“Andy, Ty? Listen up.”

The two brothers stopped arguing for a moment and looked at their older brother.

“I need some time alone, okay? To prepare something for you guys.” He smiled at them.

“Why? What do you need to prepare?” Anders asked with a suspicious undertone.

“It’s gonna be a surprise. I’m not gonna tell you about it!”

“A surprise? Cool!” Ty grinned broadly at his older brothers.

“Yes, a surprise. And I will need to go out for it in a while. Anders, will you manage with Ty and Axl for a while?”

Anders nodded eagerly. He was old now, three years older than Ty. And Axl was eight years younger than he was. Of course he would manage!

“I am counting on you, Anders! You will only get your surprise if you all behave well while I am gone. Do you understand?” Mike looked very seriously at his two brothers. Anders needed to feel important, he would have to take care of his two younger brothers while he was out, because he doubted that their mother would be any help, if, for instance, Axl would cry again or was hungry. “You know the rules, Anders. You have all the responsibility now.”

Anders nodded again and said: “I understand.”

“Good. Now, you’ll go to your room and take Axl with you. You can continue playing there, okay?”

Anders and Ty got on their feet, and after Mike had woken up Axl softly, all three of them left his room with the UNO cards. Mike got his Laptop out and started to do some research. In school they had talked about Christmas traditions in different regions, like in Europe, where at this time of the year it was winter and usually snowing. His idea was to find some recipes for typical German Christmas cookies, he knew they were delicious because his English teacher had parents from Germany and had brought some cookies to class once. During his research for recipes, he also got to know about another interesting tradition in Germany: St. Nicholas’ Day, which was the 6th of December, tomorrow. Mike smiled. Perfect. They would be so excited about it. After about half an hour, Mike took out some money of his, from which he originally had planned to buy a new video game, and went out for shopping.

After one hour Mike came back with two bags full of groceries, which he put down on the kitchen counter. He looked around the room and since the kitchen and the living room were directly connected he could see the pieces of the smashed vase form earlier. Obviously neither his mother nor his father had shown up again, his father would probably only show up the next day, and his mother would maybe only show up to make them dinner later, but not even that was for sure. Mike got a broomstick and started cleaning up the mess on the floor. After he finished he put all the candies and little chocolates in a bag and carried them in his room, so his brothers wouldn’t see them until the next morning. After that, he went over to Anders’ and Ty’s room and opened the door slightly to peek into the room. Anders was lying on his bed reading a comic, while Ty and Axl sat on the floor with Ty showing his younger brother some pictures of different animals and explaining them.

“Are you ready for your surprise?” Mike asked them with a smile. The heads of all three brothers looked suddenly up to him.

“Yes!” Anders and Ty said in unison and got up to their feet rushing to their older brother. “What is it, Mike? Tell us!” Ty added with excitement.

“Get your little brother with you and we will meet in the kitchen, okay?”

“The kitchen? Why in the kitchen, Mike?” The blond boy asked.

“You’ll see.”

In the kitchen Mike had already unpacked all the things they would need for the Christmas cookies and the recipes were lying on the table. Only a few seconds later, Axl came into the kitchen.

“Mikie! What’s the surprise? What’s the surprise?” He was jumping up and down in front of his oldest brother, as Anders and Ty arrived at the kitchen as well.

“Okay, listen up. We’re gonna do some baking for Christmas!”

“Baking? Awesome, Mike! What are we gonna make?” Ty seemed to be even more excited than Axl. Mike chuckled.

“We are making German Christmas cookies.” He grinned. “I’ve bought everything we need and looked up some recipes, so we can start immediately.”

“German cookies? Why from Germany, Mike?” Anders demanded to know. He probably just didn’t believe that there are other kinds of cookies than the triple chocolate kind he was always eating.

“My English teacher brought some to school some time ago, they are really good, Anders. You don’t need to worry.” He assured his little brother.

______________________

The baking was a lot of fun, even though the kitchen was an absolute mess already after ten minutes. The three younger boys didn’t want to listen to Mike’s instructions, a few eggs landed on the floor and another one landed in the bowl – including the eggshell. At some point Anders had decided it would be funny to throw some flour at Axl, who now thought it was okay to do the same. Needless to say, a few minutes later Ty, Anders and Axl were covered in flour and even Mike hadn’t been left out, as he had half-heartedly tried to stop them. In the end, Mike was happy to know that his younger brothers had fun and were distracted from the fight they had witnessed earlier, even though it would be a lot of work to clean up the kitchen later.

As soon as the first baking trays with cookies were in the oven Mike started cleaning up the first mess, but still making sure that the boys stayed in the kitchen and didn’t leave flour in the whole house. He made them sit down at the table and prepared some frosting, chocolate frosting and gave them different kinds of sugar candies for decorations with the clear instruction not to eat them beforehand and promising they could eat the rest of it afterwards – if there was any left. Still, he could hear his brothers giggling as soon as he turned his back to them again.

While Mike made sure that there was always at least one baking tray in the oven he watched his brothers decorating. It was interesting how different his brother went to work. Each of them started with a lot of motivation, although Anders’ motivation faded quickly, so that after a while he didn’t decorate the cookies with much effort anymore and had more fun making fun about Axl’s decorating skills. Axl, young as he was, made a huge mess on his place. Icing and candy was spread everywhere on his table, his hands and his face. Ty on the contrary worked concentrated. Each cookie looked differently than he one before and everyone was decorated with effort and creativity.

After three hours of backing, all cookies were baked and decorated and sorted into boxes, the brothers sat down on the table.

“Now, try some of your cookies. I bet you made them delicious!” Mike said and smiled at his younger brothers who all at once grabbed some cookies and ate them quickly.

Anders was the first one to comment. “They are not bad.” He said with his mouth still full. Ty nodded only as his was shoving his third or fourth cookie already in his mouth.

“Mikie! I wan’ another one!” Axl whined next to Mike. His arms were too short to reach the box, which was now standing between Anders and Ty. And so Mike handed Axl a few cookies which he took with a grin and started eating them again.

______________________

Later that evening, after Mike had made sure his brothers showered and had a decent dinner (their mother hadn’t shown up the whole day, they hadn’t even heard a noise from her bedroom), he wished each of his brothers a good night. Much to Mike’s relief neither of them asked any questions about what was wrong with Mum or where Dad was. After he had made sure that his brothers were finally sleeping, he went to his room and got the chocolate. He had heard from his English teacher that in some countries in Europe St. Nicholas (who was someone like Santa Claus, if he was right) would put things in the shoes of the children from the night of the 5th to the 6th of December, and since his brothers, especially Axl, had looked so sad he thought it would be a nice treat. Someone had to look after them after all. And if his parents wouldn’t do it, he was the one in charge of this family.

It was worth it, Mike decided the next morning when he saw the faces of his brothers. Ty had been the first one who had notices the sweets in his shoes and as soon as he did, he had woken up Anders and Axl, who had come down as quickly as they could and looked at their shoes filled with their favorite chocolate, drops and gummy bears. Of course he had to explain them, where all that stuff had suddenly came from, so he told them that they were a small early Christmas treat from Santa’s brother Nicholas, who only this year had enough time to come all the way to New Zealand to give all the nice and kind kids candy. It wasn’t true what he told them, but he couldn’t quite remember how the tradition originally had developed, so he just left it like that.

Mike watched them from a small distance as they tried to grab all their candy out of their shoes and compared who had gotten the most and who had the best. He smiled. He always loved when he saw his brothers being happy and smiling, forgetting how awful the world could be.

He noticed how an arm was wrapped around him and pulled him close. It was their mother, she had finally come out of her bedroom. She looked tired with black rings underneath her eyes, but she smiled weakly at her oldest son.

“Thank you, Mike.” She whispered. Mike only nodded, he saw how a tear rolled down her cheek, which she quickly wiped away. He let her hug him, but he barely returned the gesture. She had forgotten all about her responsibilities, had hid in her room and hadn’t cared a bit about her sons crying and being worried. She didn’t give a thing for their happiness. Mike was angry, and with that he made the promise, that he would always, always, be there for his brothers. Help them, if they needed help. Making sure they were alright and doing his best to make them happy.

______________________

It worked, more or less, for a few years. Then Mike turned twenty-one and the world changed for him. Their mother left and Mike was a god. _God of Games_. And hell yes, he was gonna use his powers.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :)
> 
> I already had started and palnned to write this story back in October, but then NaNoWriMo happened and after that I kinda forgot to continue writing this and wrote other things instead. Only yesterday my inspiration for this story came back to me, so here we are at last!
> 
> English is not my native language and I have no beta. Please let me know, if there are any mistakes.
> 
> Please forgive me if there should be anything that doesn't fit with the later storyline in TAJ, but I haven't seen the third season yet, so I am not sure about everything concerning their parents. Let's just say it's artistic freedom and creativity ;)
> 
> For this story I imagined Mike to be 17, Anders around 11, Ty around 8 and Axl 3 or 4 years old.


End file.
